Tapping Brand Growth

When it comes to unforgettable advertising campaigns, Miller Brewing Company is the creme-de-la-creme, however, the company wasn't always sitting in the "front row" of pop-culture marketing tactics. It was during the 1970's when the brewer decided to re-think its "Champagne of Beers" positioning--an upper-crust moniker that was preventing the company's core product, Miller High Life, from connecting with the common beer drinker. To help energize its image and tap into mainstream consumers, Miller enlisted the services of legendary advertising firm Backer & Spielvogel, who in turn, coined the household phrase, "It's Miller Time." Turns out, it was the perfect image booster that Miller needed and the rest, as they say, is history.

History Repeats Itself
Today, Miller Brewing Company is a subsidiary of SABMiller plc, the world's second largest brewer with $3.2 billion in annual revenue. Once again, the company is gearing up for an image transformation that aims to capture escalating market share. According to the company's 2003 annual report, numerous tactical initiatives were created to boost consumer demand for its Miller Lite and Miller Genuine Draft brands. For instance, the introduction of innovative packaging and award-winning advertising is again grabbing the attention of consumers. Miller Lite's volume gain, for instance, in both supermarket and convenience stores outpaced leading competitors for the 13 weeks ended April 10, 2004, according to ACNielsen data.

But re-energizing its already well-known trademark through high profile marketing tactics is only part of the story. A number of behind-the-scenes sales and information technology moves are bolstering its aggressive marketing strategy to ensure that the right brands and the right quantities are represented at the right retailers.

In the second quarter of 2003, Miller went live with Space Planning by Intactix, an upgrade of JDA Software's space management tools. The company also recently embraced Efficient Item Assortment by Intactix (EIA) integrating data (POS, market and consumer) into the assortment process for more customer-targeted planogram development. Not only has Miller purchased the tool, but they have also partnered with JDA to improve the tool's capabilities. These are tech moves that Miller believes will boost productivity and market share by delivering profitable, localized category recommendations and shelf assortments to its extensive network of retail customers.

One of Space Planning's strongest features is the ability to create and customize output that accurately reflect the needs of specific retailers, according to Diane Christopherson, manager of space management, Miller Brewing Company. "Through Space Planning, we are able to provide meaningful, actionable insight to our customers to help them drive volume and profitable growth. There are a lot of retailers that do not invest in space management software systems, therefore, they rely on manufacturers such as ourselves to provide expertise on the beer consumer and the category."

Miller has worked with several major retailers to develop customized assortments for the beer category. Working specifically with the retailer's strategies, EIA has allowed them to quickly identify non-productive SKUs and high-potential opportunity SKUs. The time to create an effective assortment has been reduced considerably with the use of the assortment tool, and the results have been more profitable for the retailers.

According to Christopherson, "By using EIA, we are able to help our retail customers uncover opportunities and create an assortment that satisfies all of their consumers, both current and potential."

Hatching the Plan
In terms of creating planograms, Miller works with its retailers to develop a formal, full-blown planogram once per year with minor updates made at the six-month interval. Some retailers, however, require monthly updates and thankfully, due to the flexibility of the Space Planning software, this can be accomplished. "If we finish the planogram for the month of April and in June new products are released, we'll pull the planogram back out, work in the new products and reset the planogram for the store," says Christopherson.

Christopherson says the Space Planning software could easily be used right out of the box, however, Miller requires a much higher degree of analysis. "We wanted consistency within our organization and we wanted to make it easy for our users to work with all types of data. That's where we did a lot of customization," says Christopherson.

The customization Miller has built into the JDA tool is invaluable, especially in terms of importing data into files. "In the past, it took up to 10 minutes to load the data into one planogram; now it only takes several minutes to load that same data into hundreds of planograms," says Christopherson. "What's important is that we're able to take a retailer's criteria and produce a report that demonstrates how that retailer's objectives have been met. The reporting capabilities really tie into what the retailer wants."

According to Regenia Stein, vice president, strategic accounts and category management for Miller Brewing, retailers are placing more emphasis on the automation of data collection. In response, Miller has created several proprietary software tools to assist them with their efforts to integrate retailer and market data into the assortment and space management process. "When a retailer partners with Miller, we are able to quickly incorporate that retailer's sales data, along with our consumer behavior data, into space management and assortment projects to help them make fact-based decisions resulting in increased consumer satisfaction," says Stein. "Once we get all of that data into the system, the sky is the limit."

A User Friendly Tool
Miller distributors hooked up with JDA can also collect planograms at store level simply by scanning the UPC via handheld scanners that plug directly into laptops. Beyond question, it makes life easier when Miller's distributors and retailers are on the same tool, but through JDA, Miller relies on a conversion application called Planogram Converter by Intactix. If a retailer is using another space management software application, it is not an issue because Miller now has the ability to convert any Space Planning file into a competitive file.

"Once we showed our distributors the benefits of the software in terms of time-savings through providing reports and better analyzing the planograms, it translated into better shelf sense and the ability to expand their reach," says Jeff, Schouten, group director of category management, Miller Brewing company. "It is definitely all about saving time, but they can also create so many more planograms to a much deeper level of accuracy with the software then what they were able to do before. It is not difficult to get them on board."

Under its old model, if Miller wanted to obtain results at the end of a particular project, the time-consuming process of pulling up one planogram at a time was the only way to generate an accurate recap. Now, with the help of JDA, Miller can easily take 100 planograms, organize them into one file, and in a matter of minutes print one report that highlights what the assortment is in every planogram. Simple questions like "Does the customer have Miller Lite 12 pack cans at 100 percent distribution?" no longer entails opening up 100 different files to find the answer. "The whole process takes only a few minutes and saves hours of time," says Schouten.

The Big Question
It's abundantly clear that Miller's use of category management technology yields incredible timesavings and bolsters relationships with customers. But can this same technology ultimately be responsible for increasing market share and building brand awareness? "Absolutely, because availability is the first and most important thing at the retail level," says Schouten. "If it's not there, you're never going to sell it." To prove this point, Schouten cites a previous example, the 12 -pack cans of Miller Lite, a core product at every store, could have easily been overlooked in the past. "Now, with a simple report, we can be sure the right products are distributed in the right stores."

And while it's commendable to make sure the right products are at the right stores, it doesn't mean much unless enough supply is available on the shelf to satisfy consumer demand. The JDA tool helps Miller determine supply as well. By inputting average, weekly movement, one and two page reports are now generated instead of looking at individual planograms. "The report identifies any product that is at risk for a potential out of stock," says Christopherson, who also finds value in creating "what-if" scenarios. If a retailer needs two days of supply on the shelf but only has one, the tool calculates the potential lost dollars.

In addition, Miller's retailers sometimes want to post their planograms on an Intranet site even if though they don't have the same software. "We developed a customized application where we take the retailer's project and in a matter of minutes send out a file that is readable by the retailer, who can then download it onto their Intranet site."

Stamp of Approval
At a recent marketing, sales and distribution conference, the full impact of Miller's investment in JDA came full circle, as numerous distributors reported on the success stories and wins they've tapped into using the software. "That was real exciting and good to hear," says Schouten. "A lot of these distributors had to invest a lot of time and money which somewhat disrupts their process because they had to learn their software and new ways of doing things. I asked them if it was worth it. Across the board, everyone said 'absolutely, we're much better off than we were before.'"